Monday, November 28, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

About half a year ago, the folks over at Electronic Arts asked me if they could put my car in their new video game, Need For Speed: The Run. Of course i gladly accepted. Here are a couple shots that they have sent me.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Post my wheels up for sale on your local forum/blog/facebook etc. Make the sale within 10% of my (very reasonable) asking price. And ill give you a 10% cut. I have seven sets available so if you make all the sales you can make over a grand easily. Just have the buyer contact me by emailing me at yutaakaishi@gmail.com and have the buyer give me your paypal address. A lot of these wheels would be great on many cars that i have never owned, so naturally i am not a member of any forums that cater to such vehicle's owners, but maybe you are! Or perhaps you have a friend who is looking for a set of authentic wheels for their car, we can help each other out.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Possibly up for sale is my black 1999 Mazda Miata. 63,XXX miles. Clean title in hand. The car is a purpose built, turn-key drift car. Yes, the car is driven hard. But it is well-maintained to take whatever you throw at it. The car is 100% reliable and ready for you to drive up to a drift event, drift all day, and drive home without a problem.

This Miata is a drift/track car and has a few dings and scratches. The car has been garaged its whole life as well and has never seen winter. The interior is completely gutted except for the essentials.

I am very meticulous especially when it comes to fluid changes. I change the engine oil right before every event, the transmission fluid every 3 events, and the differential fluid every 2 events (if not sooner). The only time this car gets driven is to and from drift events and the occasional weekend drive. Fluids have all been changed beginning of this month (October 2011) and the car has just gotten a 4-wheel alignment.

The car produces over 240whp/210wtq. The car is not built for overall horsepower but built for response, reliability, and balance. The suspension, brakes, power all work in harmony together to provide an overall awesome driving experience.

CONS: The interior is gutted and has no AC (has heat though), airbags, and soft-top. The car has a check engine light (always has since the car got turbo’ed many years ago) probably due to 02 sensor since there is no catalytic converter. The car has very minimal ground clearance but I guess that is a PRO to other people like myself but it is on coilovers so you can easily raise it up.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Today we will install a full size radiator in my Civic, I recently swapped a B18C from an Integra GS-R into the vehicle and the stock half size radiator just wasn't cutting it. So the awesome folks over at Koyo (Scott to be exact, this guy is the man) hooked me up with one of their 36mm V-core racing radiators. However, we decided on not a regular half size Civic radiator but their Scion TC application (V2776). This is a full size radiator that could easily fit in the engine bay of the Civic, however the tricky part is that I was adamant on keeping my AC. Here is how it went.

If you have been reading this blog at all, you may have seen that i recently made my radiator support bolt-on after having the original one destroyed by a steel beam on the freeway. So i unbolted it and off it came.

First we removed the stock radiator and AC condenser mounts by using a spot weld remover.

Then I trimmed the rad. support to accommodate for the filler neck.

Safety first! I like wearing gas station sun glasses when i grind/cut/destroy stuff.

fitment looks pretty spot on.

This radiator is quality!

I went ahead and removed the stock radiator - into the trash it goes.

After welding new mounts for the bottom we test fitted the radiator support on the car.

Looks pretty good so then we mounted the AC condenser behind the radiator along with a 12" electric fan.

I rigged up the radiator hose crossover using 90 degree bends, the stock hose and some brass tubes, I think I'll get it made in aluminum soon though.

And there you have it, full size radiator in a Civic. Big thanks to Koyo of course and my roommate Allan for helping!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

My roommates from down here came up to help me move, threw all my junk into an Uhaul, trailer-ed the Corolla down.

Oh the I-5 South, not digging the gear ratios on the GS-R engine. haha.

I miss little things about Norcal here and there, but to be completely honest - It's just the people that I really miss. I am looking forward to my new life down here, I'd like to find my potential and utilize it.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

If you have access to a computer or a bookstore/convenience store/grocery store you know who Alexi is, the writer of the blog www.noriyaro.com and writer of the Noriyaro column in Drift Tengoku. We became friends over the internet (there's no stigma any more!) and met in person at last year's Summer Drift Matsuri.

Noriyaro is definitely in my top five favorite blogs of all time, but it makes me so damn homesick every time i read it. One day I mentioned on my facebook how i feel when i read Noriyaro so Alexi had this banner up for a week or so.

I personally got a kick out of it and a lol so you know i had to take a screenshot.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Same old. I was planning on rebuilding it this summer but the arrangement for shop space fell through so I am keeping it together so i can take it down to Socal at the end of this month with the ability to move it around with it's own power if necessary. I am looking forward to building it when i get settled in. So here it is currently, collecting dust in a back yard.

Might as well post an update on the Corolla as well.

Not running at the moment, Justin just pulled the 4AC out of his TE sedan to make room for the SR so I will be putting that in mine to register and insure it, at which point the 13B goes in. Speaking of which, if anybody has a running S4 13B and transmission in Socal, please let me know.

The suspension felt really good, perfectly neutral and very predictable. If I have any complaints it would be that the RS-3s tend to lose grip when they get hot, although I didn't notice the loss of grip until I did five consecutive runs with maybe three minutes between each run - and cold initial grip is amazing. The Z1 Star Specs felt the same all day long but I'm sure they didn't even get warm considering they were on the rear of a FF.

Oh and as you can see in the photos, the car sustained a little damage. A few weeks ago, I was driving down I-5 in Stockton when a truck dropped a large steel beam about 4' in length and it struck my vehicle along with six other cars. It's a little unsightly but I'll make sure their insurance will take care of it and in the meantime I am accumulating parts, so far a FRP vented hood (allegedly a very old 5zigen model), and a URAS bumper duct are taking up room here, but more on that later.

My friend Ngoc was there operating his camera, so now I have these awesome photos, thank you.

Everybody else I went with was drifting that day, which was kinda bum-inducing but grip is fun too. A couple cars that really stood out to me:

Adam's GS300, this thing is pretty fucking rad.

And of course, Dino's god damn Corolla.

"All in all, it's pretty safe to say that fun was had by all that day."